


A Chorus of The Force

by Athenafg26



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Action/Adventure, Clone Wars, Gen, References to Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008), References to the Jedi Council (Star Wars), oops got a lil anti-war in my star wars
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:55:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26676286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Athenafg26/pseuds/Athenafg26
Summary: "There’s a pulse in the Force. Every muscle in the Jedi’s body loosens. Valdora can feel a strong golden glow emanating from the woman. This Rogueheart, who perplexed and intrigued her. A fine adversary with a blade, a seemingly fine strategic mind, and yet, she had a familiar glow about her in the Force that just seemed to sing at a dissident tune that Valdora just couldn’t keep up with.The very same glow that had blazed across her senses the moment the Star Destroyer had popped into orbit."Two young women caught on opposing sides of a galactic war. One, a Jedi Knight following every rule in the book, trying to find her way in a growing war for the galaxy. Another, a Jedi defector sworn to protect others from the horrors of the war, just trying to move past the life she once lived. An unlikely friendship blooms in unexpected places when both women find themselves on an Outer Rim planet with similar goals, yet very different methods.(A story about two ocs that was originally a gift for a friend. Things fell through, but I still wanted to share it somewhere)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> (This was originally a gift for a friend new to the fanbase. Things didn't go as planned, but I enjoyed writing some of this enough to still be proud of it and want to share it. It's not finished, hell, it's barely even started. It's probably very cringey and predictable, but it was written all in good fun. If anyone enjoys it and wants to hear more, maybe I can find the motivation to work on it. Be gentle, it was edited and written mostly at 3am)

**_A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…_ **

Valdora Athane glances up from her work at the dull _thuds_ echoing into space in the sky above. It only takes a moment or two to discover their source. Two _Venator_ -class Star Destroyers bursting into Thule’s atmosphere from hyperspace. Tucking her jacket closer, Valdora can’t help the sneer that crosses her lips.

_Nowhere is safe_ , she thinks. _Not even this tiny Outer Rim wasteland._

Valdora nods to the woman she was working with, dismissing herself from the job, and strikes out across the village. Her work here was not nearly finished enough for her to move on, but those ships on the horizon were certainly motivation enough to get far away from the peaceful village. Thule had been through a lot in the last thousand years, Valdora just hoped to give the local villages a little hope for the coming future.

But, no, the Jedi and their Grand Army had to pop in and cause more trouble than their worth.

She trots away from the village at a brisk pace, already searching at her waist for the macrobinoculars there. Once successfully up a small rise on the outside of the village, Valdora presses her binocs to her face. Finding the Star Destroyers on the horizon easily, she scoffs again. It certainly isn’t a ship she personally recognizes, but she’d hardly seen them in use before leaving Coruscant. She watches helplessly as a small platoon of gunships launch from the Star Destroyers, headed for the surface.

_And what brought you here, little Jedi General_? Valdora thinks, bringing the binocs back down. She snaps them back to her belt. Gaze still on the horizon, and the approaching warships, her fingers carelessly graze over the two silver hilts clipped at her waist.

Well, it’s not like she’s going to leave this helpless village to their own devices with a Jedi on the loose nearby. Though unsure of what brought the Republic to this tiny, unnoticeable planet, Valdora knows she’s not prepared to let it fall so easily into the Grand Army’s clutches.

The village chief won’t like this, but she doesn’t belong to him. She is _helping_ him. The peaceful planet needed neither Republic or Separatist involvement. But if the Jedi were already inbound, the droids would be close behind for sure.

Valdora grimaces, gaze sweeping over the women and children at work on the village’s farmland. Keeping anything growing in Thule’s arid atmosphere took dedication and time. Something the villagers wouldn’t have if war came to their planet.

She must go confront the Jedi.

No one else in the villager is prepared enough to do so. She knew how Jedi worked, how they thought, how they’d _become so consumed by war_. Valdora pauses, steps falling to a halt as she draws in a deep breath. _No_ , she can’t let her emotions get the best of her. That would do her no good right now. There would be a time to tap into the Force later, not here with her emotions flying wild.

For just a moment, she closes her eyes, centers herself. Then she continues on her path to the chieftain’s hut. With each resounding footstep in the dry dirt, the blazing, glowing beacon of Force energy beginning to manifest on the edge of her consciousness grows ever brighter.

«·×·»

Meanwhile, as the _Exile_ falls quickly out of hyperspace to orbit the tiny mountainous planet of Thule, one Kellian Rogueheart meditates in her private quarters. She should certainly be out on the bridge for their arrival, commanding her troops on just what to prepare for their trip to the surface. But a pull from the Force had given her the little push she needed to shirk just a few of her duties onto her commander for a little while longer.

Something about this planet was practically _singing_ with the Force. A blinding light had blazed into Kellian’s senses as soon as they exited hyperspace. The Force is surely trying to warn her of something. This planet was offering more than she had been led to believe when the Council had tasked her and her Legion with this mission.

She is completely aware of Thule’s checkered past, as a past stronghold for the Sith, but the Jedi Council had been more concerned with the droid factory prominently on the surface. The factory had been supplying their enemy with superweapons for far too long. Shutting down—or better yet, _destroying_ —the factory would quickly turn some of the war’s battles in their favor.

“General?”

A new voice drags Kellian from her thoughts. She blinks, opening her eyes to glance toward the door. In the open doorway, a man in stocky white armor looks down at her. His dark hair is shaggy, well past regulation cut, and three thin teal bars run through his left eye. His gaze is curious, but guarded. An expression he’s known to wear often.

“Yes, Commander?”

Kellian stands, subtly stretching her limbs and rolling her neck. She knows exactly what her commander is here for. It would be—

“The gunships are ready, ma’am. Just waiting on you.”

—time to make landfall soon. Kellian smiles, a gentle, subtle quirk of her lips. She nods, shedding her cloak onto her bunk. Thule would be much too warm for the extra layer, even if it might be good camouflage amongst the rocky surface. She almost feels for her troops, the armor would have been unbearable if not for the climate-controlled innards.

“Thank you, Vandal. Let us go then. Sooner we take down this factory, the sooner this war ends.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Commander Vandal snaps to a quick and efficient attention, hand waving in a crisp salute, when Kellian slides past him into the corridor. With a roll of her eyes, she beckons him after her. His booted steps behind hers are comforting in a way she hasn’t quite put her finger on yet. The trust of an ally? The companionship of a friend? Were clone commanders and their Jedi generals meant to be friends? Or simply well-versed allies on the battlefield?

Kellian knows what she would prefer, but she’s certain the Jedi Code for no emotional attachments would argue differently.

She and Vandal make it all the way to the hanger, with a brief stop at the bridge to confirm what she suspected. Vandal had already set the bridge crew to their own devices— _keep the ships in orbit, keep comms on, keep aware of incoming and departing craft_ —the orders she would have given anyway. With a customary brush to the hilt swinging from her belt, Kellian goes to climb aboard the gunship awaiting her command.

But she suddenly stumbles to a halt, hand flying up to grasp at her forehead. Vandal is close behind her. A gauntleted hand quickly on her back to steady her feet. That bright blinding light in the Force had suddenly glowed much brighter; so bright Kellian probably could have pinpointed the exact location of its source on a map of Thule. It had flashed with a fleeting sensation of _anger_. The source is not a something, but a _someone_.

A Force-sensitive? Out here, in the middle of nowhere?

Perhaps, Thule had more to offer than she originally thought.

“General?”

Kellian waves off Vandal’s concerned hand, “I’m fine, Commander. Let’s go. I’m eager to get down there.”


	2. Chapter 2

Valdora urges her beast further along. Its easy loping gait is enough to keep a steady pace without unseating her. An eopie would not have been her first choice of mount. In fact, anything with an engine instead of a circulatory system sounded much better, but the villagers had only had what they had immigrated to Thule with. So, the awkward long-necked beast would have to do.

She just needed to reach the gunships’ landing zone before the Jedi could run off too far. She had to know what the Jedi was doing here. A small part of her wishes it to be a Councilmember, finally getting off their ever-so-holy thrones to do something about the war they’d started. Perhaps it would be strict Windu, or wise Koon, or beloved Fisto. Any would do.

A flash of vengeance strikes through Valdora’s heart, but she valiantly reels it back in again. While she hoped to repay the Jedi tenfold for what they’d inflicted upon her, the murder of a Jedi Master would not get her far—and would only hurt her already thin connection with the Force. A risk she’s not quite willing to take.

The cacophonous hum of the Republic gunships yanks Valdora from her thoughts. She equally yanks on her beast’s reins, slamming the eopie to a halt with all the grace the bowlegged creature could have. A string of graceless curses flies from her lips. She executes a much more poised dismount and shoos the beast away. She’d worry about the return trip later. She needn’t the eopie getting too close and alerting her prey.

Valdora ducks low behind a scraggly sand dune that’s more dirt than sand. Her macrobinoculars were far too detailed for the landing zone just beyond the dune, so Valdora just lies flat and peeks over the top of the rise. She lets loose another curse and her grimace only deepens.

Two light Republic gunships touch down beside the two already long since descended to the surface. Identical clone troopers mill between the four ships, readying weapons and supplies and cargo. Valdora may not know war the same way the Jedi did, but she did know how to spot a mobile base when she saw one. _These bastards are setting up for the long haul_ , she thinks, grumbling aloud to herself. She almost raises herself up from the dune just then. She can handle a handful of clone troopers with ease. Was that really all the Republic could afford Thule and its peaceful villagers?

_Almost_. Valdora immediately ducks back down as the last gunship to set down throws open its cargo door. About ten troopers hop down, all marked with various stripes and designs in a bright teal blue shade that stands out against their plain white armor. Then just behind the last of the troopers—a commander by the looks of his armor marked with three long bars through his helm’s visor—a young woman steps lightly onto Thule’s dusty surface.

The woman’s garb definitely screams Jedi, as if the absolute _blast_ of power Valdora feels in the Force isn’t enough to go by. The woman is quick to start up a conversation with the clone commander. Her lilac tunic and skirts blow slightly in the dying breeze. Thick, leather boots wrap tight around her ankles. She keeps easy pace with the commander. Long, dark hair is curled away into two spiraling bunches that fall about her shoulders. Her eyes look bright and wide, a shining blue in the reflection of the hologram the commander activates. The twin jagged lines tattooed across the woman’s forehead match the coloring of her clones’ adornments perfectly. Brilliant silver pauldrons protect her shoulders, and a gray belt wraps around her waist. And there, attached tightly from a metal hook, Valdora spots her last, unnecessary clue that _this_ is her Jedi.

The thin, silver hilt hangs innocently. It’s carved with intricate patterns and lines. The casing clearly looks well taken care of. For the briefest of childish moments, Valdora wonders the hue of the kyber crystal within. Would the blade shine a vibrant violet to match the Jedi’s garb, or would it flash the verdant green of the Jedi scholar? The woman certainly didn’t look the warrior type.

Why send her here?

“What are you here for?” Valdora mutters to herself.

Just then, the woman snaps her head in Valdora’s direction. Despite the searching curiosity of her gaze, Valdora knows she’s been found out. Well, she wanted a fight with a Jedi. Now, it looks as if she’s going to get one.

“Ah, Sithspit,” Valdora swears as she slowly rises to her feet, hands outstretched before her.

She doesn’t exactly like the way the Jedi’s gaze narrows.

«·×·»

Kellian’s gaze snaps up at the new voice. Thule’s plains and soft breeze did nothing to disguise the voice of the young woman climbing the dune on the edge of their camp. Even as she lets herself take the newcomer in, she can hear Vandal and many of the other troopers raising and priming their blasters.

She simply raises a single hand, waving for the men to halt and hold their ground. She won’t go attacking a threat that hasn’t presented itself. The woman before her is odd, but not particularly threatening at first glance.

The woman’s double tunic top reminds her of the fashion back at the Temple, the dark navy on top of pale tan a stand out from the usual Jedi garb. The jacket upon her shoulders look well-worn and loved, perhaps it is an old keepsake? Pale grayish blue tattoos spiral up the woman’s left arm, disappearing beneath her bracer and sleeve. The woman’s hair is short, a dark brown with a shock of bright blue through the bangs. And yet, despite all that, Kellian can’t stop examining the woman’s face. Her heterochromatic eyes are guarded, cold and stormy as she keeps her gaze locked on Kellian. One tawny, one silver. Crude and obvious mechanical implants are imbedded in the skin around the woman’s silver eye. Tiny lights flash periodically out from the mismatched metal.

The woman’s gaze seems to harden even further when she notices Kellian looking at the prosthesis.

“I mean you no harm, Master Jedi,” the woman calls out, holding her hands up in front of her.

_A huge mistake_ on her part. The action causes her jacket to part just so that Kellian can get a good look at the leather belt wrapped around her waist. Which means, she can get a _very_ good look at the two very familiar weapons hanging from loops on the belt. The silver, leather wrapped hilts glint in Thule’s morning sun. The hilts are just different enough to not appear identical.

Dual-wielding Jedi are not unheard of. Just _incredibly_ rare.

And this woman did not give off the aura of a Jedi. There is a solid blanket of the Force wrapped around her, sure, but even bounty hunters and pirates can be Force-sensitive. In fact, it probably made their jobs all the easier.

So, where did this woman get her weapons? Which Jedi did she kill to obtain them?

In an instant, Kellian lets her hand fall back to her side. No longer holding her men back from raising their weapons once more. Between one breath and the next, her lightsaber has snapped up to her outstretched palm; she ignites the weapon’s intense golden blade. She doesn’t raise it any higher than waist level, wrapping both hands around it. A subtle shift to her heel puts her at a ready stance for dueling.

“Where did you get those sabers?” She grounds out, fixing an even more intense stare on the unknown woman.

The woman dares to glance down, a small smirk rising to her lips when she looks back up. Her gaze narrows though, and from here, Kellian can easily see the machinery in her temple whirring and flashing brighter than before.

“Long, _long_ story. Not one I like to tell, Master Jedi.”

The woman may have distracted her with her out-of-place smirk and strange augmentations. But Kellian has her Keshian genetics on her side. She sees the woman’s fingers twitch even as she keeps them outstretched in surrender. There’s a pulse in the Force, familiar and striking all the same.

Suddenly, the woman’s weapons are in her hands, blades bursting to life in a flash of brilliant color. The blade in her left hums at a surprising orange, while the one in her right is a familiar, but vivid blue. There’s a grace to the way the woman twirls the blades in her fingers, like they’re extensions of her own limbs.

The same way Kellian feels about her own weapon.

“We could let our blades do the talking, don’t you think, Master Jedi?” the woman laughs, finally dropping into a defensive stance with blades crossed in front of her.

“Stop calling me that,” Kellian growls.

The woman just smirks and quirks a brow in response. Then, she charges.


	3. Chapter 3

Valdora smirks at the Jedi, twirling her twin blades beside her. There’s a fire that seems to light beneath her skin when the weapons are in her hands. As if the Force itself is licking at her limbs; each burst heavier and brighter than the last. It _sings_ to her.

And, oh, how does she sing right back!

Gathering the Force around her, Valdora leaps forward. She holds back her internal battle cry. Her blades fall behind her, leaving dual trails of amber and cobalt. She can barely feel the dust beneath her feet, carrying herself forward quicker than the normal eye could ever follow.

But her opponent is both Keshian and Jedi. Seeing Valdora is no problem at all.

When Valdora whips her blades down, the Jedi’s golden saber is there to meet it. The two lightsabers spit and spark. Protest their convergence with a fury of colored fire. Valdora’s hands only grasp the hilts tighter when she pushes harder against the Jedi’s defense.

Then in a flurry of movement, she yanks her sabers away. Spinning and twirling away from the Jedi, Valdora smirks and lets her feet dance gracefully. It’s showy and nowhere near the vigorous style she’d been taught years ago. But it’s just haughty enough to draw the Jedi into pursuit.

The blue-eyed woman lunges after Valdora. Lightsaber spinning across her body. The golden light casts elegantly across her form, catching on her robes and hair. Valdora darts back into her space, bringing her blades to pincer around the Jedi’s.

Between the sizzling of their blades, the two women regard each other. Each press back with valiant effort against the other’s saber. Valdora flashes her opponent with a grin, playfully squinting her eyes. This only hardens the Jedi’s gaze in return.

The Jedi shoves hard against Valdora’s orange saber, knocking it away enough for her to bring her golden one in a sweeping attack. But Valdora is quick to snap her other saber up into a block. Once again, they are cast into the spitting, sparking light until they both fall away.

For a moment, the two women just circle each other. Kellian holds her saber steady at her side. Ready for the most minute tell to this other woman’s next move. The woman twirls her blades between her fingers, carelessly whipping them this way and that. The sabers singe the dirt beneath their feet. Dust kicks up around their ankles.

Kellian can physically feel the tension in her troops. Their blasters have stayed raised as she’s clashed with this new foe. Their fingers itch to pull their triggers. Their general is in danger, or so they see it as such. Vandal’s keen gaze is on her every move.

Kellian puts her men from her mind as the strange woman lunges forward again. Midmovement, the woman switches her grip to a backhanded hold. Prepared to swipe upwards. Two blades against one is not a fair fight. This woman knows this, and is still holding back.

It takes no thought at all to bat the woman’s roundabout thrust at her. Kellian’s mind buzzes as each of her combatant’s attacks is blocked. Her blade cuts up and across her in jagged lines to intercept each of the woman’s twin attacks. She’s fighting from her back foot. Dual-bladed warriors are rare and the ones that survive get rather good at their craft.

Kellian whips back just as the woman’s sapphire saber slashes in a wide arc over her head. The woman continues the slash and drags her amber saber in the same path before whisking them both with her when she whirls away from Kellian’s responding jab. Her gaze narrows on her opponent when she hears the priming of her troops’ weapons.

When the woman finishes her revolution and faces Kellian once more, she no longer holds two single blades. Now, she twirls a single dual-bladed staff in front of her. She catches the woman’s smirk over the sizzling energy of the staff when she brings it to rest horizontally at her chest. The leather-wrapped hilts clinch together symmetrically, both guarded emitters still spitting their brilliant blades.

“You fight valiantly,” the woman chuckles, “ _Master Jedi_.”

The smirk is still in place, brow arching when Kellian feels a muscle twitch in her cheek. The woman twirls her blades once more, each twist of her wrist sends them spinning faster than the last.

“ _Who are you_?” Kellian asks.

A laugh punches from the woman’s chest. _Scathing_. “Someone who matters not, in the grand scheme of things. Not to you, nor the Jedi, for that matter.”

The words strike a strange chord with Kellian. This is a woman scorned by the Jedi. This is not a personal grudge against Kellian. This is no bounty hunter before her. Not with the speed and skill with which she handles her weapon.

_This woman had once been a Jedi_.

That much is clear, and Kellian is sure she’d have her answer in surety if she could just lay her hands upon the woman’s saber.

Valdora narrows her gaze at the Jedi. So high and mighty with her Temple training. Wielder of a golden blade, but too good to be a Sentinel. Her style spoke leagues of her patience. She didn’t rise to Valdora’s taunts. Just easily swept away each of her swirling attacks.

She hadn’t seemed surprised by the emergence of Valdora’s staff. Only curiosity had sparkled in her large eyes. Not unexpected for a scholar. _What was a scholar doing out in the field_? Were the Jedi hurting that much? Stretched too thin by their war.

Valdora holds her blade steady in response to the woman’s gaze. The Force sings around this Jedi. It practically belts an epic chorus in praise of the Keshian’s power. Valdora can feel it in each tilt of the woman’s head, each twist of her wrist as she bats her attacks away with her blade.

The Force had gifted her a worthy opponent.

It surges around the Jedi when she narrows her gaze at Valdora. A piece of her itches to push this remarkable Jedi to her limits. Force her to attack back, force her to find openings in Valdora’s whirling defense.

_I didn’t come here to kill a Jedi_.

In the moment of silence that follows after, the woman begins to circles Kellian again. She whips and twirls her saber in dual high arcs. First over one shoulder, than over the other. It’s a flashy technique. One the Jedi never would have taught. One’s lightsaber is for one’s own protection, not for waving about like a plaything. But in the confidence of the woman’s steps, the graceful one foot over the other, leaks her Jedi heritage.

_She doesn’t_ want _to kill me_ , Kellian muses with a tilt of her head. These moments of hesitation said that well enough. This woman intrigues her so. What had brought her here to Thule? What had brought her here, to this dune, where Kellian’s legion had set up their base camp?

Her mind still turning, Kellian adjusts her grip on her saber. Wrapping both hands around the hilt, she raises two spread fingers on her right hand, pointing upwards toward her blade. She knows Vandal is watching. His gaze has not left her back since her lightsaber ignited. Even as she takes a deep breath and blinks once, Kellian can still feel her opponent circling her.

She waits. Waits. And waits.

Until the woman is coming around her left shoulder. Then a flash of movement, Kellian swings her saber up and around at the woman. She aims high. Forcing her opponent to duck beneath the blade, before snapping her own saber up to knock the offending blow away.

In the same instant, Vandal and his direct command open fire on the woman.

If the woman had not had Jedi blood in her veins, she would have dropped dead. That much blasterfire, most of which came from behind her, all at once, would be too much for even a skilled warrior. But this strange woman is no ordinary skilled warrior.

Her hand raises immediately, casts her blades up and behind her head. Blaster bolts are gracefully reflected into the sky. Each bounce easily off the columns of light energy. Even as the woman continues to circle Kellian, she keeps her blade twirling just right to block the incoming fire.

And yet, none of Kellian’s men drop to a reflected bolt.

The woman keeps every shot up and away from any sentient.

At the raise of Kellian’s open hand, the blasterfire ceases. In the very same moment, Kellian gives a hearty tug on the Force. The strange woman’s saber looses from her hand and flies into Kellian’s open palm.

Then everything goes white.


	4. Chapter 4

_A young woman sits cross-legged on a hard metal floor. Her wispy brunette hair barely grazes her forehead where her brows fold in concentration. Despite her clenched lids, the crude machinery beside her left eye blinks and flashes rapidly. Her hands rest palm up on her knees._

_The constant hum of a starship in lightspeed whirrs around her. But the young woman doesn’t flinch, if anything, her brow crinkles in further concentration. As the ship continues to hurtle through space, not a single other soul moves about it. The noise becomes a muffled purr as everything falls away._

_The young woman’s brow finally relaxes. The scrunch of her eyelids lessens. Her whole body loosens, limbs going limp and lax. Even the flashing of her implant slows to a sluggish flicker._

_Mangled pieces of metal rise from their place on the metal before her by some unseen hand. A surge of power, dull and muted but strong nonetheless, swirls around the woman. The blue-green streaks of hyperspace reflect off the silver and ebony of the floating scraps. Piece after piece zips and rearranges in midair, forming symmetrical patterns before the young woman._

_Slowly,_ carefully _, from their places on the floor, two tiny crystals float into their places in the mangled metal. One amber, glinting brightly in the low light of the ship’s interior. The other sapphire, glowing brilliantly against the silver metal beside it._

_With the tiniest twitch upon the young woman’s face, the mangled metal begins to shift again. Snapping and warping, reforming in midair. Sleek curved silver cuffs form on each end. Ebony carves uniform shapes into the silver casing, each circling a crystal in a careful embrace. Twin swathes of leather crawl up the silver casing, winding round and round and round._

_With a final resounding_ click _, each piece falls into its final resting place._

_Heaving a great sigh, the young woman opens heterochromatic eyes and smirks at the lightsaber floating before her._

«·×·»

Vandal’s hand is at Kellian’s back when she comes slamming back from the Echo. Not much has changed in the moment she’s been gone; she realizes as her head clears. The strange woman before her, with the twin-colored eyes—Valdora, a piece of her knows—still stands where she last left her. Though now, Magnificent and Thief stand beside her. Blasters trained precisely on the front and back of the unarmed woman. A hand each on one of the woman’s arms.

Valdora’s head is cocked to the side, eyes narrowed in Kellian’s direction. Her gaze is not on her blade, which still rests in Kellian’s hand though now it is held before her rather than aloft. Dual-colored blades extinguished. No, the strange woman’s gaze is rapt on Kellian’s.

“You _were_ a Jedi,” Kellian whispers.

Valdora laughs, earning herself a blaster pressed closer to her spine. She pays it no mind, other than a brief smirk thrown in Thief’s direction. “Keyword: _were_ , there, Master Jedi.”

“And yet, you continue to call me Master.”

Kellian takes a rather purposeful step toward Valdora, who matches her gaze with each step forward. There’s still that playful glint in the ex-Jedi’s eyes even as her body exudes an unease it hadn’t held before. Kellian feels more than sees Vandal follow closely behind her. Valdora doesn’t even bother to notice the commander.

After a moment of tense silence, Valdora puts her smirk back in place. “Old habits die hard.”

The ex-Jedi’s gaze finally breaks from Kellian’s to dart down to her weapon. Curious. Dual-blades weren’t banned in the Jedi Order, but they were certainly rare. And Jedi don’t forge their lightsabers as young adults, but as children. And yet, Kellian can feel the bond the woman before her had with the blade in her own hand.

“Who _are_ you?” Kellian asks again.

Valdora considers the question for just a moment. Kellian almost expects the same derisive response from earlier. But instead the woman just nods her head solemnly.

“I am just a woman. A protector of the people.” That smirk weasels its way back onto her lips. Her implant flashes a bright crimson. “Specifically, the people of Thule’s smallest village.”

A part of Kellian wants to press. _Yes, but why? What happened to the Jedi in you? Why and how did you leave?_ She almost thinks she might get an honest response, just from the dim light in the woman’s two-toned gaze. But another calmer voice, a wise word from her own Master, steers her clear of pursuing her own curiosity.

Kellian takes a step back then, a deep breath whooshing through her unbidden. Vandal is near at her shoulder again. She can feel his anxious gaze on her, in tune with her and yet still just a beat behind her rhythm. Even Valdora follows her movement with a keen gaze.

A single wave of Kellian’s hand releases the ex-Jedi from the grasp of her troopers. Valdora doesn’t move apart from glancing from side to side. A nod to each of her captors—a sign of respect for men just taking orders. Then, Kellian holds the dual-bladed saber out to the woman.

Even as Valdora looks up at her in surprise, Kellian can feel both woman and saber yearning for each other. A most curious bond _indeed_.

“Go,” Kellian says. “Go protect the people of Thule. It’s the right thing to do.” She offers the saber an inch closer to the woman.

Apprehension rolls off Valdora in waves through the Force, but she reaches carefully for her weapon anyway. A surety finds her posture once more when her fingers wrap around the worn leather in the center. With careful precise movements, she twists the hilt between two hands. One hilt becomes two once more, and she replaces them each one after the other at her hips.

Kellian takes another step back. Another wave of her fingers beckons her men back another as well. Leaving Valdora free on all sides, boxed in no more. With a kind smile, Kellian waves her hand in the direction the woman had come from.

“Go on,” she murmurs, wondering where the snark and charm had gone from her opponent, but she takes one last step away from the woman.

That seems to be the last of the shackles holding the ex-Jedi in place, because Valdora finally smiles. It’s near genuine, lighting her eyes and crinkling her cheeks. Then the smirk floods back into her features as she gives a dramatic bow, a mocking of a respectful bow from Padawan to Master.

“Thank you, _Master Jedi_.”

Kellian does not bother to disguise the roll of her eyes, but she smiles and nods her head towards the dunes again. When she looks back at Valdora, she has stepped away, trudging her way up the dune along the side of the camp. Kellian feels a strange surge in the Force that she quashes down with a small frown.

“Valdora!” She calls out despite it.

The woman turns at the top of the dune. Her brows scrunch up, a frown pulls at her lips. But she pauses anyway. Hand only barely grazing over the shape of one of her hilts.

Kellian pushes a smile to her lips. “May the Force be with you.”

Now, it’s Valdora’s turn to shake her head, eyes rolling as her implants twinkle. She simply nods and descends the other side of the dune. Kellian keeps her gaze on the woman’s retreating form until she can no longer see her.

That woman has carved herself a strange echo in the Force. One Kellian desperately wished to meditate on. Perhaps her old Master could give her some advice—on whether to follow this odd thread in the Force or to put it aside in favor of her own mission.

“Ma’am?” Vandal’s voice at her shoulder calls her back to the present.

Kellian simply waves off her commander’s concern, turns back toward the holoprojector they had been hunched over. “Come. Let us continue as planned, Commander.”

If the clone felt any confusion or disagreed, his helmeted face did not show it. “Yes, ma’am.”


	5. Chapter 5

Valdora lets herself slide down the dune and out of the Jedi woman’s sight. Her fingers graze unconsciously at her saber hilts. She wondered what the woman had seen. Valdora may be very out of practice with her Jedi studies, but she could recognize the look on the woman’s face easily.

Some Jedi were so in tune with the living Force that they could sense the history of an object or person through touch. The sensation came like a vision before their very eyes, or so Valdora had heard. It could be overwhelming if unexpected.

Clearly the Jedi had seen something in the history of Valdora’s saber to confirm her Jedi past. A rather self-conscious part of herself wonders just what that had been. Her checkered past left quite a lot of clues to her Jedi heritage—not that she had much other heritage to speak of—but not all those clues were kind ones.

Valdora gives her head a slight shake. Pushing the thoughts far from the moment at hand. The Jedi knew of her past. What’s done is done. That’s not the important part.

Just beyond the dune, she can hear the Jedi General and her clone commander speaking. Thought to be alone once more, they are not trying to contain their voices out here in the middle of nowhere.

Valdora rolls over onto her belly, slinking back up the dusty dune. She peeks just over the rise of it. She almost expects to find a full legion of clone troopers with blasters trained on her. But no one pays her any mind as she takes the camp back in. She hadn’t seen much of it before. She’d been too focused on her saber and her feet.

The troopers have set up a simple, practically _textbook_ , mobile base. Most of the gunships are taking back off, returning to the Star Destroyer still orbiting Thule. Many of the troopers, some marked some unmarked, are left milling about the small space. Leaning against crates and boxes scattered about the camp. Probably containing munitions, explosives, or any number of supplies for housing an army.

Most of the troopers are marked though. Plenty are dashed here and there in bright teal paint, much like the forehead of their General. Valdora easily recognizes the two who had held her captive when the Jedi had taken her saber. The two troopers are marked with bright teal and blue paint, slightly different from their fellow soldiers. One has a shape splotched on their temple, a leaf or something similar at least. The other has two eye spots painted beneath its visor, one teal one blue, along with four Aurebesh symbols scribed upon its forehead in a diamond pattern. Though even with her enhanced vision, Valdora can’t quite make out what symbols they are.

Glancing away from the familiar troopers, Valdora finds her mark. Exactly where is helpful, too. The Jedi General and her commander—the clone with the three bars through his visor—are leant over a haphazard holo-table. The projector is displaying a bright blue 3D model of a massive building.

Valdora smirks to herself. Reaching up to tap the implant in the side of her face, her vision sharpens. She can feel the heat beginning to grow in the corners of her skin, but she pays it no mind. She could endure the pain. She can just barely make out the symbols written beside the model: _droid factory_.

There’s a droid factory? _Here_? On Thule? The damned Separatists had been here on her planet, right under her nose, the entire time. While she didn’t quite see the wrong in their side of things, Valdora simply despised the Separatists overuse of destructive battle droids. Even the piddly B1 fraggers could do enough damage to an unarmed village.

_That’s why I’m here_ , Valdora thinks, as she tunes back into the conversation being had over the holo-table.

“The factory is in full-swing, ma’am,” the commander is saying. “Bandit and Loinnir returned shortly before we landed and were— _ahem,_ interrupted.”

“And what did they report?” the Jedi asks, her bright gaze locked on the table.

“Guarded entrances. Seems they put a good number of their completed clankers, straight into service, at both the front and rear entrance. The men didn’t see a single organic in the building. Looks to be completely mechanical, inside and out.”

A tap or two at the base of the table, and the commander has zoomed the image in further to point at a balcony on the eastern edge of the building. A balcony that certainly looks out of place on a _factory_.

“We have reason to believe that whatever being is running this show; they’ll be holed up here. The boys reported no organic beings, but that doesn’t mean the factory is under no supervision. Likely the Seps left a tactical in charge.” The commander waves his hand at the table again.

A new image slides up beside the factory. The big, ugly head of a T-series tactical droid. The droid’s head is boxy and angular, with thin photoreceptor slits. The straight line of its vocabulator gives it an angry, disgruntled appearance that should be laughable if they weren’t so _damned_ annoying.

“All the better,” the Jedi replies, and Valdora nearly laughs. A tactical is _better_? “I’d rather not have to kill a living being today.”

“Today, ma’am?”

“Yes, _today_.” There! Finally, a snarky smirk plays across the Jedi’s lips when she looks up. “Commander Vandal, if you and I can clearly see the _Exile_ in orbit, it is only a matter of time before _they_ spot it as well.”

The Jedi stalks around the holo-table, manipulating the image once more. The T-series swoops away and the factory image grows larger once more. The Jedi spins the image back and forth, first to the front, then the back.

“We had better work with what little surprise we will have by the time we arrive. Which entrance reported least resistance?”

“The front, ma’am, but I think they’re expecting an attack already.”

The Jedi smiles up at her commander—Vandal, apparently. Her large, blue eyes twinkle in the holo’s pale light. “Good, we’re counting on that.”

She reaches up and swipes away the holo’s image all together, but not before Valdora catches a glimpse of the factory’s coordinates. A tap to the side of her face again captures them forever. She tries not to wince at the blistering heat of the metal there. If the Jedi wanted to attack that factory, Valdora would be there. That factory had as much to do with the village she’d promised to protect as it did with the Jedi’s mission.

“Commander, choose the best of your troops. Put together a forward party, a backup troop awaiting a signal for help, and leave the rest of our legion here to guard our base. Leave some pilots here, in case of a hasty retreat.”

The Jedi General’s expression has hardened. For as much as she appeared to be teasing her commander a moment ago, now she is all _general_. This is a woman who has commanded troops before and knows what she is doing. Even if her apparent age made that hard to believe.

“Yes, ma’am,” Commander Vandal snaps to attention, executing a perfect salute before spinning on his heel. He starts to march through his legion. “All right, boys, you heard General Rogueheart, we set off before day’s end!”

Valdora tunes out from the commander’s words as he begins rounding up specific troopers for each of the companies the general had outlined. No, Valdora’s gaze stays fixed on the Jedi. With a flick of her wrist—a needless use of the Force—the holo-table blinks out. Leaving the general in just the warm midmorning glow of Thule’s sun.

Her fingers splay out on the edges of the table. Grip tight, white at the knuckles. Valdora squints. Where was the confident, battle-hardened general from a moment ago? But as she watches, all the tension floods out of the Jedi.

There’s a pulse in the Force. Every muscle in the Jedi’s body loosens. Valdora can feel a strong golden glow emanating from the woman. This _Rogueheart_ , who perplexed and intrigued her. A fine adversary with a blade, a seemingly fine strategic mind, and yet, she had a familiar glow about her in the Force that just seemed to sing at a dissident tune that Valdora just couldn’t keep up with.

The very same glow that had blazed across her senses the moment the Star Destroyer had popped into orbit.

And Valdora _would_ get to the bottom of this mystery.

«·×·»

Kellian lets her mind drift as Vandal moves off to do his duty. She trusted his knowledge of his men’s skillsets. He would pick the right troopers for the job. She suspects he has a few favorites anyhow; she muses with a smirk. She lets her body relax into the pull of the Force.

It is strong here on this planet. A surprise, as the Council had paid it nearly no mind until the Separatists had shown interest in it. Who knew how many Force-sensitives this planet housed, unbeknownst to the Jedi? Even as Kellian closes her eyes and wanders into the flow of the Force, that bright colorful glow of the ex-Jedi flashes across her consciousness.

The ex-Jedi—Valdora, she had sensed in the woman’s memory—intrigued her. The vision of the young woman building the blades she’d used earlier has perplexed Kellian. Most Jedi build their sabers as children, under the tutelage of Master Yoda and Professor Huyang. Kellian remembers very vividly her own trip to the frosty ice planet, the gentle peace she had felt as the pieces of her golden blade had floated together to form the weapon resting at her hip now. Surely, the Jedi had not sent the young woman alone to collect and build her sabers.

And yet the woman _glowed_ in the Force. It practically sang with the power she held beneath her skin.

And Kellian, ever erudite as she is, is immensely curious about this woman.

But the woman is of no matter to her mission. A curiosity for another time. Perhaps for after the attack at hand. Perhaps after Kellian has spoken to Master Ti. Surely, the Togrutan Jedi Master would know just what to do with the strange woman.

Shaking her head, Kellian drags her thoughts back to the matter at hand. She lets the waves of the Force flow through her. Preparing both mind and body for the inevitable battle ahead. The lack of living beings on their enemies’ side is a weight off her shoulders. Yet, she still knows the lives of her men—as well as her own—are still very much in the balance. No matter the simplicity of their foe. Battle droids were still built for exactly that: _battle_.

Kellian hadn’t been in a big battle in a few years. Nothing like taking on a whole factory directly in enemy territory. She needed to free herself of any distractions before she and her men left. And she couldn’t do that here.

She pushes away from the makeshift holo-table. Nods gently to some of the clone troopers standing around awaiting orders. They wouldn’t question her too much. They wouldn’t dare question their general—even if she gave no indication this is a tyrannical rule. It isn’t.

Her feet move of their own volition. Carrying her up toward one of the remaining gunships. All the troopers had long since cleared out of them. Even the pilots, who got a moment to stretch their legs and catch up with their fellows. No one would notice her here for the time being.

Kellian folds herself onto the hard durasteel floor of the gunship. She crosses one leg over the other and drapes her palms over her knees. A hefty sigh leads to closed eyes and she drops her chin to her chest. Here, she lets the Force drift over her. Envelop her. She embraces it in return. It sings around her; a soft, gentle tune that washes every worry from her mind. For a long moment, she is completely at peace. One with the Force around her.

And she adamantly ignores that bright, twin-toned burst of light when it flares across her senses. No, she is one with the Force here. There is no other. Just Kellian Rogueheart and the living Force.

Not a dual bladed warrior in sight.


	6. Chapter 6

As Valdora steps away from the dusty dune, she whistles sharply. She needs to get back to the village in a hurry. She’d brought barebones to Thule, a habit from traveling from one place to the next rather quickly. And while she usually didn’t go looking for trouble, she was certainly prepared for it. She just needed to get back to her hut in the village.

She jogs the rest of the way to the eopie ambling over to her. With the faintest pulse of the Force, she leaps onto the beast’s back.

“Hi-yah!” A whip of the reins encourages the eopie’s gait faster. Valdora presses herself down against the creature’s neck and lets it run. It knows the way back to village.

And, for the first time in a very long time, Valdora lets herself slip deep into the Force. It welcomes her back, with open arms, into the clutches of meditation. The Force doesn’t judge. Can’t judge. It is just what is, and what has been, and what will be. Even if she had shut the door on the Jedi, the Force had never left Valdora.

Even if that thought frightened her so.

Perhaps the Force surrounding her could help her choose the best path forward. Was following this mysterious Jedi worth her time? Was Thule worth her time or was it time to move on? In the quiet behind her eyelids, Valdora searches for the answer.

She can almost hear Master Yoda’s voice. “ _Through a Jedi, the Force flows. Influence us, it does not._ ”

And her own old Master responds back in her soft, familiar voice. “ _The Force guides us. Listen to its wisdom, my young padawan._ ”

Yet still, a blinding, golden light burns on the corner of her senses. Valdora doesn’t believe in fate. The Force worked in mysterious ways, but it didn’t concoct fate. The universe is too random.

But that glow. That glow that has followed her since that Destroyer entered orbit. The Force pulls and tugs on it so solidly that she can’t help but to want to follow it too. Surely, the Force knows something she does not. Surely, that blazing young Jedi is someone worth pursuing.

_Why in the hells else are you preparing to storm a Separatist factory_? A part of her—logical and world-weary—cries.

And that part of her has a point.

In the moment before she arrives back at the village, Valdora feels—and not for the first time—a strange longing to go back to the Temple. To beg at the Council’s feet to take her back. To beg forgiveness from her Master. To take the Jedi back despite all they had done.

But when she opens her eyes; sees the village before her. Tiny and unassuming, struggling to survive _. Left to die_. She remembers why she left. Why she walked away. And renews her vow never to go back.

The droid factory is large and intimidating, rising from the wasteland around it. With nothing but mountains and dunes for klicks, the massive building stood out. Its blank exterior matched the landscape around it, but the tall whirling spires twisting toward the sky reminded Valdora of Geonosis.

And not in a good way. One never really does remember Geonosis fondly.

She can hear the clanking and crashing of the machinery within from her vantage point on the outcropping nearby. Only just imagining the mechanical horrors they are building. The rows and rows of battle droids, perhaps even their blasted tanks and artillery.

Valdora clenches her fist. Thinking of the damage those things could do to her charges. And it only sits just a handful of klicks from them. Thule’s people would never stand a chance.

_And that’s why I'm here_ , Valdora tells herself. _Not because some high and mighty Jedi is here to kriff things up. Because I’m here to protect my people_.

It’s almost convincing too.

She pushes the thought from her mind with a shake of her head. Instead, she glances over the entrance she planned to infiltrate.

If the Jedi thinks the front entrance would be easier than the back, she’s in for a rude awakening. Or Valdora is, if the Jedi Generals think an entire company of battle droids is _easy_. That’s one hundred blasters trained on you, not counting whatever support the damned clankers could pull from within the factory.

Charging right in had to be the most _laserbrained_ idea Valdora had ever heard. And she’d done some pretty stupid things before leaving the Order.

Still, she doesn’t plan on fighting that whole company alone. If luck is on her side, she won’t have to fight any of them. The Jedi—Rogueheart—and her soldiers could keep the droids occupied while she slipped inside.

Alerting the whole factory to their presence wouldn’t do them any good. But it would give Valdora just the edge she needed to sneak through the building before the Republic could get their hands on the place. A hand drifts to the satchel around her shoulders, the thermals packed away inside. The factory _would_ come down at her hands. Not a single droid or weapon would escape. Thule would be free.

Then Valdora just needed to deal with Rogueheart. And, once more, if luck is on her side, perhaps the factory can be her stone.

With a final glance at her objective ahead, Valdora settles down atop the outlook. She crosses one leg over the other, folds her hands atop her knees, and closes her eyes. A deep breath settles the Force within her.

That golden light grows ever closer with each passing moment.

«·×·»

The determined, repeated _thuds_ of marching feet startle Valdora from her trance. She comes flooding back to herself just in time to see the company of white-garbed soldiers march into view. Valdora’s place up on the nearby canyon’s wall gave her the best view of the clones’ arrival.

And at the head of them all, with her commander at her side, marched General Rogueheart. Her silver pauldrons glow in the faint setting sun. From her vantage point, Valdora can’t quite make out the Jedi’s expression, but she imagines it must be determined. The Force sings with it.

If Valdora can spot the Republic forces though, then surely the droids must—

As if she had willed the action into reality just then, the rows and rows of battle droids open fire. Blaster bolts whizz across the makeshift battlefield. The clankers begin to spread out, dropping formation to move up on their opponents. The clone troopers raise their weapons as well and begin firing back.

There’s eclectic variety to the troopers’ weapons. Long range, short range. Rapid and single fire. Dual and single blasters. The crimson and cobalt bolts of energy blast through the air between the two armies.

It’s only when the Jedi gives a short battle cry and swoops into battle—her commander right at her heels—that Valdora starts to make her own approach. Creeping along the canyon ridge, closer and closer to the factory entrance. The blast doors are still shut tight, but she had the Force on her side. They wouldn’t be shut for long.

She tries not to keep her eye on the battle. She doesn’t care about the outcome. This is a means to an end.

And yet then the blast doors open and Valdora hears a sound that sends chills up her spine: the familiar _clankity-clank_ of rolling droidekas.

“General! Rollies!” She hears one of the clones shout before his voice is cut suddenly short.

The droidekas are making much quicker work of its opponents than the rest of the battle droids. The rolling assassin droids dart between the thinner, slower droids, before standing up to engage shields and release rapid blasterfire on the clone troopers.

Valdora finds herself frozen, suddenly stuck years ago on a similarly dusty planet surrounded by the whirring _clacks_ of droideka limbs. She can only watch as the point-headed balls of death start dropping troopers left and right.

Plastoid-clad bodies litter the canyon alongside the metal shells of fallen droids.

There’s that dusty planet again flashing before Valdora’s eyes. _Screaming as she whips her cobalt blade up to repel a blast aimed for her Master. Implant whirring in overdrive, scorching her skin, desperately trying to take in the thousands upon thousands of droids surrounding them. There’s no way. This is the end. We’ve lost._

“General!” Commander Vandal’s voice rises above the din below.

Valdora snaps back to reality and spots the Jedi General below. Backed against the canyon wall, a small pack of droids closing in on her. Two standard battle droids go down to reflected fire, but two supers and a droideka continue to bear down on the woman. Her golden saber glows brightly against the canyon stone. It’s not enough.

For a moment, Valdora glances back at the open blast door. Droids continue to stream out of it. The factory is _certainly_ aware of their presence now. It’s the perfect moment to stealth in. All the Seps’ attention is on the Jedi and her army. Now’s the—

The Force sings below her. Belts a chorus so strong, Valdora almost feels a physical push against her very bones from it. The chorus glows golden.


	7. Chapter 7

Kellian weaves her saber back and forth in front of her. Catching whatever blasterfire she can reach. A flick of her wrist and a twitch of concentration sends a few droids tumbling back. Ten more just take their place.

All around her she can hear the screams of her men. Flashes of burning when their lives are cut short. She can feel each blast shatter upon her own skin as if she were going down with them.

_This was a mistake_ , she thinks. _There’s too many. They were expecting us_.

Over the battle, she can see the factory’s blast doors wide open. Spewing more and more droids into the canyon. Each one taking up fire against her men. Even with the Force at her back, she can’t protect them all. This is a losing fight.

They wouldn’t survive a retreat.

She’d led her men to their deaths. What sort of general is she?

_There’s no way. This is the end. We’ve lost. I’ve failed them—I’ve failed everyone_.

Kellian pulls her blade up in front of her. The brilliant glow reflects off her skin. She can feel its heat blazing on her face. The Force guides her hand to continue reflecting fire at the droids. She may be going down, but it won’t be easily. Closing her eyes, she takes a final deep breath.

There’s that flash in the Force. That multicolored radiance that burns just beyond her vision. A mystery she’ll never get to solve. The strange, dual-color Force-sensitive warrior from Thule’s wasteland.

A burst of heat flies over Kellian’s head. A stray blaster bolt gone awry.

She waits. The Force will welcome her home despite her mistakes. “I am one with the Force. The Force is with me.”

Her murmur is lost to the battle around her. The crash of metal and armor. The spark of blasterfire. A pulse in the Force. Something metallic shatters against the stone beside her. And then a very familiar sound—a warm and vibrant hum—brings the clatter around her to a halt, if only just for a brief moment.

Her brow furrows, and she pries her eyes open. Her saber falls to the side, forgotten.

Standing before her, chest heaving with exertion, is Valdora. Her hair is frizzy and wild; she blows a strand out of her eyes with a smirk. Her dual-edge saber hums in anticipation. Held casually at her side. Looking every bit the cocky warrior she had battled only hours ago. Yet, here she stands amidst the smoking, smoldering wreckage of every battle droid that had cornered Kellian.

“Need a hand, Master Jedi?” The ex-Jedi says.

_Never look a gift dewback in the mouth,_ Kellian thinks with a grin of her own.

“Thanks,” she says instead.

Valdora’s smirk shifts into something more genuine. She twirls her blades errantly in her hand. A glance over her shoulder has the smile shifting back to its previous form. She nods her head in that direction.

“Shall we?”

This time Kellian lets out a surprised laugh. Here, she thought this mystery unsolved, and here it was fallen straight back into her lap.

“Of course.”

“After you, Master Jedi.”

With no more words, the two Jedi leap back into the fray.

Valdora laughs as she whips around, blade already flying through the body of a battle droid. Her saber is a blinding whirl of color as she moves. Droids were overwhelming in numbers, but nowhere near as terrifying as dueling with another swordsman. The Force pulls her fingers gently, urging her blade wherever it needed to be to blast a bolt right back at its source.

At the edge of her senses, she can feel General Rogueheart fall into step behind her. Together side by side, they slash through droid after droid. Even droidekas fall prey when their attention is divided by the flurry of sabers working in tandem.

For all the protecting of innocents she’s done, Valdora didn’t quite realize how much she missed this. The thrill of battle. The comforting hum of comradery. The frenzy of twirling her saber like its meant to be.

Kellian feels her courage surge back as she falls in line with Valdora. The woman leads the way with her twin-colored blades. The amber and sapphire blurs of energy make quick work of whatever unfortunate droid steps in her way. Kellian’s own yellow saber follows suit. Slicing this way and that through metal and wiring.

The Force guides her to sidestep blasterfire, both friendly and not. With each step closer and closer to the blast doors, Kellian can feel the tide of the battle turning. As if her troopers are feeding off her own confidence, they fight back with a vigor unseen moments before.

She tries to keep her eyes off the bodies beneath their feet. There would be time for mourning their losses later. They had to close those doors first, or this would never end.

Beside her, Valdora whirls with the same speed and confidence she had held in their duel. This time though, there’s a ruthlessness to each strike. Something she’d held back against Kellian. Sometimes a snarl crept up on the ex-Jedi’s features amidst her giddy smirk.

A mystery for another time.

“General!”

Kellian’s head whips up to catch Vandal pointing at the blast doors before returning fire nearby. When she follows his direction, her blood runs cold. Behind the last batch of droids joining the battle, a towering Armored Assault Tank rumbles just beyond the blast doors.

Even with two Jedi on the field, that tank would be devastating.

“The blast doors!” Kellian shouts over to her companion.

The woman’s gaze darts ahead of them, saber still whizzing through its dissection of a super battle droid’s head. The machinery at her temple flashes an angry red. Her lips form a curse Kellian can’t quite hear. Turning back to Kellian, she points her amber blade at the doors.

“We have to close them.”

“Wh—how? They’re massive!” Kellian argues, swinging her saber up to deflect a blast.

That smirk plays back across Valdora’s features. “The Force is larger, my friend.”

And in a moment of clarity, Kellian can feel just what the ex-Jedi means. Despite her gaze still rapt on the battle around them, she can see the plan as it lies before Valdora. And it’s not a bad idea.

“Okay,” is all she replies; her comrade’s grin only grows in response.

Together, they turn to face the blast doors. Their eyes close, shuttering out the chaos around them. In each of their respective darknesses, a brilliant glow resides just beside them. A chorus of the Force rises up around them. Everything is sharp. Focused. Certain.

Both their hands raise at once. High above the battle around them. Blade forgotten at their sides. Sensation narrows down to the vast durasteel doors. Every molecule in the metal leans rapt to their minds.

The Force answers their call.

In a surge of energy, an invisible power slams the blast doors closed. The giant metal doors crash violently into the body of the AAT, crushing it instantly. In the moment of silence that follows, the two women open their eyes. There’s a beat of stillness. Then lightsabers whirr to life again.

The remaining droids fall to pieces in minutes. Leaving behind a company of fifteen beings standing in the ruins.

Kellian counts off heads as she looks around, recognizing her men from each mark upon his armor. _Commander Vandal, Captain Thief, Knave, Bandit, Magnificent, Loinnir, Hero, Hush,_ _and five shinies_. She’d left with over a hundred troopers, and only thirteen remain.

_A failure indeed_.

“Commander!” Kellian forces her voice to stay steady.

The trooper looks over at her. She can’t track his expression beneath his helmet, but she can sense his frustration. This is their fault. She knows he feels it just as she does.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Do what you can for our fallen,” she glances back up at the still blast doors. “I doubt they’ll give us long before they try again. We need a new approach.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

With her commander set off to ready the remains of their company, and to give honorable treatment to those lost, Kellian turns to her unexpected ally. The ex-Jedi is simply looking around at the destruction she has wrought. Her two-toned gaze is quiet and conflicted. The hilt to her saber hangs limply in her fist, blades long since extinguished.

“Thank you.”

Kellian’s words bring that conflicted gaze snapping back up to her. For once, the smirk doesn’t find its way to Valdora’s face. Instead, she quirks a soft smile in her direction.

“Well, I couldn’t just leave you to die, could I, Master Jedi?”

There’s a laugh beneath the words, like it’s a joke. But Kellian simply nods. “Well, I thank you anyway.”

Valdora nods. “So, what next?”

Kellian looks up in surprise. Her fingers pause where she’d been snapping her saber back to her belt. “You’re joining us?”

The woman shrugs. “Might as well, right?” Then that smirk pulls her lips once more. “Plus, it looks like you need someone watching your back.”

Kellian thinks for a moment. It isn’t the worst idea to bring the strange woman along. Her skills with her blade would certainly come in handy, even if her ever-present smirk unnerved Kellian a bit. Additionally, keeping Valdora close meant she could study the mysterious woman more.

“Very well. But,” she points a finger in the woman’s direction. “You listen to me.”

Valdora lets out a sharp bark of a laugh. She holds her hands up in surrender, briefly bringing Kellian back to a few hours ago. “Yes, all right, _Master Jedi_.”

“And enough of _that_ ,” Kellian mutters. She straightens up a little and holds out her hand. “Formal introductions. I’m Kellian Rogueheart.”

Kellian tries to ignore the way the ex-Jedi eyes her hand for a moment. But in the end, she passes her saber to the other and shakes Kellian’s hand. “Valdora Athane.”

“Nice to meet you, Valdora.”

“Nice to meet you too, Kellian.”


	8. Chapter 8

Kellian lets Valdora go after they shake hands. She watches the strange woman wander away, where she immediately helps a clone trooper assess the damage to his fellows. The ex-Jedi stows away her lightsaber at her belt. Between the soldier and her, the two begin to pull fallen men back toward the opening of the canyon.

All around her, clones are doing the same. As Kellian turns away from her ever-present mystery she spots Commander Vandal speaking with a trooper marked with a teal four-pointed star on his temple. _Loinnir_. Not far behind the two, clearly listening in as well, is another trooper with tiny ones and zeroes scrawled along the outer rim of his helmet. Even at this distance and unable to read the entire line of numbers, Kellian smirks and rolls her eyes. _Bandit_. Her commander is well on top of what to do next then. She’ll leave him to his work.

There’s plenty of work left to do before darkness falls upon the tiny, unassuming planet of Thule.

Sometime later, after darkness has well and truly fallen, a small pyre for the fallen clones is roaring brightly at the mouth of the canyon. The rest of the company—if one could even call it that; they didn’t even have enough men for a platoon—have made a small camp up on the plateau above the canyon. A spot picked out with the help of Valdora, as she had been lying in wait there before the massacre at the factory’s front entrance.

Kellian has sent most of her men to rest and recharge. Leaving just Commander Vandal, Captain Thief, Valdora, and Kellian resting around the small artificial light Valdora had produced from her satchel. A quiet had fallen. Long ago, the blast doors of the droid factory had finally slammed shut. The clankers inside must have finally figured how to pull the wreckage of their tank out of the way.

And while Kellian had almost expected the world to erupt into the sound of thousands of metal feet clanking her way; instead she had found quiet. Just the soft snores of her exhausted men and the warble and shuffle of Thule’s sparse wildlife. Vandal and Thief’s heads are bent together, both helmets removed to speak quieter and more efficiently. Battle plans, Kellian assumes. Better to leave those to men who knew. Clearly Kellian— _the scholar_ —is out of her league there.

As if reading her thoughts, Valdora snorts quietly across the lamplight. When Kellian snaps her head up to stare at the strange woman, she finds dual silver and copper eyes staring back at her.

“Yes?” she prompts.

Valdora simply grins. Her gaze slides to the clone troopers conferring between them before turning back to Kellian. “I can hear you berating yourself from here. Punish yourself a little quieter, would you?”

“Wh—I—!” Kellian starts to protest, but Valdora cuts her off with a chuckle and a wave of her hand.

“It’s okay,” she says—and is that kindness written across her mischievous gaze?—and her grin softens. “It’s written across your face. Not all of us need psychometry to read others.”

Kellian feels herself relaxing then. Her shoulders slump and every muscle full of tension finally falls lax. Valdora’s smile quirks a little higher in response and she scoots closer, orbiting around the artificial light between them. When she stops, she is but an arm’s length away.

“You’re not much of a fighter, are you?” the ex-Jedi asks.

While Kellian certainly wants to argue that she held her own in the battle with the droids earlier, and even bested Valdora herself in their first encounter; she instead shrugs and laughs dryly. “What gave me away?”

“Your saber,” Valdora says. “But you’re no Sentinel.”

At that Kellian nods. She remembers the stoic, masked guardians of the Temple. With their long, intimidating golden pikes and staves. She also remembers the pleased curious noise Master Ti had made when she’d returned from Illum with her own brilliant golden blade. Her Master had never pushed her to Sentinelhood. She’d only encouraged Kellian in following the Force as it called to her. That calling had come in the form of a desire to study the effects the omnipresent aura had on the world, and it only strengthened as she began learning to use her senses to feel the endless histories the Force left in its wake.

“I never wanted to be one. I'm sure it is quite the honor, but it’s not for me.” She laughs again, shaking her head. “I’d give just about anything to be back in the Archives though.”

Valdora smirks, her eyes twinkling. The little blue lights at her temple flicker brighter for a moment. “A scholar. I thought so.”

_Master Ti always said I was a bit of an open book. Perhaps psychometry goes both ways_ , Kellian thinks. But she nods. Then she tilts her head, squinting at her companion.

“And what about you?” She asks. “You’re not a Jedi anymore, and _yet_ —” Kellian waves a hand at where one of Valdora’s saber hilts peeks out from beneath her jacket.

The woman shifts just enough that the hilt disappears beneath the jacket again. She settles her arm across her lap just so it covers the other hilt at her other side. “That’s quite a long tale, my friend.” There’s a distance to Valdora’s gaze when it drifts back to the lamp between them. Her smile fades almost entirely and the implant beside her eye flashes a bright crimson before paling back to blue. “Simply, to satisfy your evident curiosity, I no longer agree with the Jedi way of doing things.”

“But—”

Valdora holds up her hand once more and Kellian can feel the Force gather up around the woman in a brilliant flash of multicolored light.

“Though a Jedi I am not; the Force is still a part of who I am.” When Kellian snaps her mouth shut, Valdora’s smirk quirks again. “And, let’s be honest, a lightsaber sings _so much better_ in the Force than a blaster does.”

Though she does agree, the woman’s tone and phrasing had set off a thousand alarm klaxons in her head. Kellian doesn’t push though. She’d just watched the ex-Jedi’s gaze close off—and she is beginning to associate crimson with a darkness besides the Sith—and she doesn’t wish to push her new ally completely from grasp. So, instead of inquiring more—into Valdora’s past, into Kellian’s vision, or Valdora’s connection with the Force—Kellian simply nods.

“Indeed, it does.”

She forces herself to her feet then. Casts her gaze across the canyon to the droid factory below; still whirring and clanking with the nefarious mechanical work within. For all her eagerness to put her skills to the test, Kellian feels nerves swish in her belly.

It would take time to recover from her mistake today. She wonders what Master Ti would think of her losing most of her men in one measly battle. But then, Valdora’s words come back to her: _you’re not much of a fighter, are you_? This isn’t her specialty. Even Vandal and Thief are new to this.

_One mistake does not entirely a Jedi make._

Gaze still out on her destination, Kellian smiles. A scholar can find a lesson to learn in anything.

She glances down at her companions. Valdora watches her carefully, with a guarded two-toned gaze. But she’s smiling. A knowing smile that unnerves Kellian for just a moment before she returns it.

Vandal and Thief watch her with quiet gazes. Thief’s red hair shines in the moonlight. His gaze is soft and curious. Vandal watches her with pride in his gaze. They stare in harmony.

They couldn’t blame themselves for this failure forever. There would be other missions, other battles, successes to outweigh this one mistake.

She nods to her commander, he nods back. An understanding.

“I think we must call it a night. Tomorrow we have a factory to deal with.”

Valdora’s smile tilts up to her trademark smirk. “And I think I know just how to help.”


End file.
